Carl's dopey grin turned into a confused frown. "Whadda ya mean Reg?"

"The next supply ship is bound to show soon, right? You think when it docks they'll just send us back to the barracks and chew us out for not behavin'?"

"He's right, Carl. This whole place is crawling with that disease or virus or whatever it is. They'll probably take samples from the dead and destroy the camp."

"What about us?"

"That's what I don't want to wait around and find out," Reg said.

"What are you suggesting?" Howard asked. "That we escape?"

"It's the only way. We've got plenty of shooters and we could take them by surprise. We could jack the ship and be in Argentina or Chile in a few hours."

"I don't like it," said Howard. "I can't see the three of us taking over a whole d.a.m.n ship."

"What if we stay and show them the s.p.a.ceship?" Carl said. "h.e.l.l, we'd be famous. Not only could we take credit for finding the ship but we're the only G.o.dd.a.m.n survivors in this dump."

Howard laughed. "Look, I'm no conspiracy theorist but I have a feeling a s.p.a.ce ship filled with intergalactic specimens and a virus that kills everyone it infects is something the government is going to keep under its hat. I think Reg is right. They'll test the s.h.i.t out of us to see why we're immune and then keep us quiet for good."

"Look mates," said Reg. "All I know is I'm wearing clean underdrawers and I'm on me way to getting pleasantly spitty. f.u.c.k it then. I says tonight we live the good life and no worries about the rest of that s.h.i.t until tomorrow. Savvy?"

"I'll drink to that." Carl raised his beer for a toast. "You sure you don't want a cold one, Howie?"

"No thanks," Howard raised his can of Pepsi. "That's what got me into this mess in the first place."

"More for me and Reg then. Cheers."

The lights went out.

"What the h.e.l.l?"

"Generator must have shut down," said Howard. "Did anybody see any flashlights before?"

"There's got to be one somewhere."

Howard fumbled for the cigarette lighter on the table and used it to offer some meager light. "There's probably a supply room or something in the back. I'll take a look."

He slowly walked with the hand cupped flame through the dark guardhouse. At the back of the building he found what he was looking for, a door marked STORAGE.

Howard pushed open the heavy door and a foul odor hit his nose. His thumb slipped off the lighter and it fell to the floor. G.o.d, what was that stench? He crouched down in the darkness and felt on the floor for the lighter. The floor was wet and sticky.

"Howard!" Reg shouted from the other side of the building. "We found a torch in the kitchen."

"I'm over here," he shouted. "Hurry up, I can't see a d.a.m.n thing!"

Reg and Carl walked down the hall accompanied by a bright dancing beam of light. Howard had his back turned to the open door of the storage room.

"Good. I guess we'll have to go outside and check out the generator. It's just probably out of gas or something."

Carl and Reg didn't reply. They were too busy looking into the storage room behind Howard.

"What?" Howard turned around and discovered what the sticky wetness on the floor was. It was blood from the poor guard lying on the floor. His entire torso was cut neatly down the center and his ribcage was severed in the middle and pulled apart. All of his organs were gone. Heart, lungs, everything. The only thing that remained was the severed end of his large intestines, leaking feces, blood, and bile into the empty body cavity.

His face was frozen in a look of pain and bewilderment, his eyes gazing at the ceiling. In his right hand he clutched a blood covered M4 carbine and empty sh.e.l.l casings littered the entire floor of the room. Next to his body were two empty thirty round magazines.

"Oh my G.o.d," Howard finally said. Reg pointed the flashlight around the room.

"Christ, b.l.o.o.d.y bullet holes everywhere. Even in the ceiling. Who was this bloke shooting at?"

"Whoever it was, I don't think he got *em," said Carl. "Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d. That's a rough way to go, even for a guard."

Howard pointed at the back of the door. "Look, most of the bullet holes are in the door and around the frame. He must have been making his last stand in here before he was killed." He ducked back in the hallway, away from the stench. "Come on, we have to get the generator going. We'll figure all this out after the lights come on."

They found another flashlight and some emergency candles in the storage room. With the candles going and a good fire burning in the fireplace, the main room of the guardhouse was almost cozy.

Howard still yearned for the bright lights provided by the generator though. He gathered his courage and put on one of the heavy guard parkas and some boots.

Carl held out a handgun he had found. "Better take this, just in case."

Howard looked distastefully at the weapon and shook his head. "That's okay, I don't really do guns any more. I'll only be a minute."

"You want me to come with?"

"That's okay," Howard slapped Carl on the shoulder. "If I'm not back in ten minutes call the cops."

Howard opened the door and stepped out into the night. Despite wearing real clothes and shoes instead of the dirty rags he'd worn for weeks, the night was still incredibly cold. The wind slapped at his face while he slowly made his way through the snowdrifts to the back of the building.

When he turned the corner he could make out the large shape of the generator a few feet away from the guardhouse and heard the motor running. When the lights went out he figured it just ran out of fuel. With everybody sick there would have been n.o.body keeping an eye on it the last few days. He used the weak beam of the flashlight to look for any clues but everything looked normal, as far as he could tell. The h.e.l.l with this, it was too d.a.m.n cold. He'd run back inside and take another look at it in the morning. They'd just have to make do with the fireplace for the night.

Howard turned to head back the way he came when something caught his eye. Several depressions in the snow that might have been footprints before the wind got to them were near the generator. He followed the cable sticking out of the generator with the flashlight beam and solved the mystery of the blackout. The power cable that was supposed to deliver power to the building was severed. It wasn't a clean cut like you'd see from a wire cutter or a saw. It was shredded and ripped apart.

He spun around at a noise he thought he heard behind him and saw nothing. The flashlight only revealed snow and darkness beyond the reach of the beam. He switched it off and crouched down, waiting for his eyes to adjust. If someone was out there, they would stand out against the light snow. He saw the silhouette of the mountains at the edge of the valley against the dark sky but nothing else. What was that noise? He could have sworn it was right behind him. All he heard now was the wind, generator motor, and his heart thumping in his ears. Howard clicked on the flashlight and hauled a.s.s back to the front door.

Carl was adding logs to the fire and Reg sat at the table taking a pull from a bottle of scotch.

"What happened?"

"I don't know." Howard stomped his feet, shaking off the snow. "The generator is still running but there's something wrong with the cable. It's all torn up and I don't think we can fix it."

"How could that happen?" Carl asked. "You sure we can't fix it?"

"Yeah, pretty sure." Howard took off his coat and draped it on the back of the chair. He felt a lot better now that he was back inside.

Reg felt uneasy. He probed the room with his flashlight and noticed something in the far corner. Puddles on the floor. He pointed the light to where Howard had just been standing. The snow from his boots had melted and made the same kind of puddles.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. I think there was somebody else in this room after the lights went out."

15.

They checked all the rooms and locked the doors and windows. Besides the puddles, there were no other clues of anybody else in the building. They decided to have one person stand watch while the other two slept, just to be sure. Reg took first watch and sat by the fire with a loaded shotgun on his lap.

Sometime after dawn, the shotgun slipped off of Reg's lap and hit the floor, startling him awake. He must have dozed off. Lazy w.a.n.kers didn't even notice, they just kept on sleeping in their cozy beds. Well, no need to let them know he knocked off. He'd just say he decided to let them sleep, is all. He got the fire going again to chase away the morning chill in the room and took a leak. The daylight coming in through the windows made him feel a lot better.

Reg looked across the yard at the s.h.i.tty barracks he'd slept and lived in for the last two years. G.o.d, he was glad to be out of there. Once all his mates started getting sick it was even worse than usual. Each building held around thirty men. It was crammed with bunks and a few tables and not much else. It was rubbish when everyone was healthy, but when they started c.r.a.pping and yakking in their beds? b.l.o.o.d.y nightmare, that.

At first, the bosses had them help the sick ones to the infirmary but when it got full, they had to stay in the barracks. Pretty soon they were just left to die in their beds, bloated and stinking and moaning. The doc and the orderlies were some of the first to go down so there was n.o.body to help them. After a while, the stiffs were stacked in a big pile in the infirmary and when that got to be too much trouble they were dragged outside and left there to rot.

When the inmates noticed the guard population was thinning out, they knew it was their chance to take advantage. That's when things really got rough. The guards were b.a.s.t.a.r.ds but at least they kept order. After all of his mates died, Reg laid low until he worked his way in with the two yanks. He didn't trust them but they saved his dangly-bits by letting him come along to the ship. If it wasn't for that, he'd surely be dead.

He walked over to the table in the middle of the room and picked up the bottle of scotch he'd been working on the previous night. His head was pounding and a pull from the bottle would put it at ease. Hair of the dog. It slid down his throat like liquid fire, filling his belly with a satisfying warmth. Too long, too G.o.dd.a.m.n long without a drink. If it weren't for all the shenanigans last night he surely would have drunk himself into an early grave. He took another drink and sighed. "But what a b.l.o.o.d.y way to go," he muttered to himself.

Reg lit a f.a.g as he walked walked back over to the window. The buzz from the bourbon and tobacco stirred desires he thought had left him after years of oppression and suffering. He absently rubbed the inside of his arm with his fingers. The needle tracks had long ago faded into scars too small to be noticed by anyone but himself. If only he could spend the rest of the day on the nod. But the chances of finding any brown sugar around the camp were slim to nil and he knew it.

He looked over at the infirmary and an idea trickled through his aching head, past his heroin daydreams. Last year he developed a nasty case of kidney stones. The pain was so severe the guards were finally convinced he wasn't bulls.h.i.tting to get out of work and sent him to the infirm. He was in such agony and making such a fuss that the doctor shot him up with Dilaudid before he could give him a thorough examination. b.l.o.o.d.y Dilaudid, what a delicious treat it was. All his pain and worries and transgressions were washed away by that wonderful little vial drip, drip, dripping into his IV.

There had to be some nice narcotics left in the infirmary somewhere. He tiptoed over to the room where the yanks were sleeping. Still no stirring. He'd have a quick run over, check the supplies, and be back before they even knew he'd left.

Reg slipped on his boots and quietly opened the door. He ran as fast as his frail legs could go across the yard towards the infirmary. Booze was all right, but even if he drank a whole bottle, it would just make him want it more. If he couldn't mainline some smack, a hefty dose of Dilaudid might do the trick. He knew they was f.u.c.ked anyhow. Whatever got to that poor c.o.c.k in the supply room would surely be back for them. d.a.m.ned if he'd be sober for it.

He reached the infirmary and placed his hand on the door. The adrenaline was wearing off and the cold was setting in. What was he doing? He realized he'd forgotten the shotgun back at the guard house. He had to look in there but he would have felt a lot better with that b.l.o.o.d.y twelve gauge in his hands.

Reg pushed the door open, his hopes quickly fading as the room came into view. The place was a mess and it was obvious all the useful equipment and supplies were already picked clean. He walked through the carnage looking for any stray pill bottles or vials but couldn't find anything stronger than aspirin.

He was just about to say the h.e.l.l with it and leave, when he heard a sound coming from the back room. Sounded like silverware or metal instruments being moved around. Reg opened his mouth to shout out if anybody was there and snapped it shut again. Did he really want to know who was in there? Did he want to know who sabotaged the genny and left the puddles on the floor?

His feet slowly shuffled to the door. He knew he should turn around and slowly creep outside. He'd grab the shotgun and the yanks and come back to investigate. His feet didn't listen.

There was definitely somebody in there. The clinking noises stopped but he could sense movement on the other side of the door. He quietly got down on his hands and knees and tried to look under the door. Nothing.

There was about an inch of s.p.a.ce between the bottom of the door and the floor. He could make out a few broken bottles and some surgical instruments scattered about. A shadow moved into view and a foot appeared just a few inches from his face.

Reg's heart decided to stop beating and his mouth opened to produce a silent scream. The foot didn't belong to a man. It was a hoof unlike any he'd ever seen before. Instead of being attached to an ordinary hairy animal leg, it was covered in scales.

The doork.n.o.b turned.

Reg scrambled to his feet and started for the door. His feet, which seemed to have a mind of their own, were betraying him once again. This time they just didn't want to move fast enough.

He heard the door burst open behind him and the hoofy scaly thing coming after him. Whatever it was moved much faster than he did. As he reached the door he knew it was too late. The only thing Reg had time to do was turn around and get a quick look at the thing chasing him.

16.

Howard and Carl stood in the doorway staring at what was left of Reg on the floor. After they woke up, they searched each building for him and made a grisly discovery in the infirmary. He was dead. Neither of them had any medical training, but when a person is cut in half at the waist, it's pretty obvious he's not in stable condition. The torso half of Reg was missing all of its entrails. Like the guard in the storeroom, his body cavity was completely empty and the organs were nowhere in sight. Howard was reminded of the generator cable. Reg wasn't sliced in half by a blade; it looked like he was grabbed by both ends and pulled apart.

"We better get back to the guard house," Howard said. "Whatever did this can't be too far away."

They entered the guard house and found it in shambles. It seemed no corner of the building was left untouched. All the windows were smashed and the outside door was ripped off the hinges. The furniture was destroyed and the food was scattered about the kitchen.

Carl picked up an empty bottle and hurled it against the wall. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h! What in the h.e.l.l are we going to do now? Somebody is royally f.u.c.king with us. We weren't gone for more than fifteen minutes."

"Take it easy, Carl. We need to find someplace safe. I don't know who killed Reg and trashed this place, but I think you're right. They're definitely messing with us. They knew we were safe and comfortable in here and now we can't even close the door."

"And just where are we supposed to go? I ain't hiding back in that ship."

"Let's just get out of here," replied Howard. "They know we'll have come back to the guard house and I feel like a sitting duck."

The shotgun Reg dropped earlier was smashed to bits and the M4 from the dead guard in the storage room was missing. The only weapon they had to defend themselves with was the Glock 21 handgun Carl had tucked in his waistband.

They went to the warden's office which was also in shambles but only because the state of his office cleanliness wasn't a very high priority once his inmates and guards started dying on him.

"I was in here after I beat the s.h.i.t out of poor Reg." Carl stared at the messy desk. "The screws worked me over real good and put me in the hole. When I got out, the warden brought me in here to lecture the s.h.i.t out of me. I saw a map of the island in a stack of papers here somewhere."

They shuffled through the mess on the desktop and drawers until Howard found the map. He studied the crescent shape of the island. The farm was near the southern sh.o.r.e of the bay. On the north sh.o.r.e was an area labeled Old Whaling Village and on the west coast Howard saw a small mark labeled Amundsen Research Installation (U.S.).

"Hey Carl, take a look at this. Did you know there was a research installation on this island?"

"No, Sir. I figured we were the only ones to be crazy enough to be on this rock. You think anybody is there?"

"I don't know. But even if there isn't, it's probably a h.e.l.l of a lot safer than here."

Carl's face lit up. "And if anybody is there, we got these guard uniforms on. They won't know we ain't real screws."

According to the scale on the map, the research station looked to be about eight or ten miles away. They would have to navigate over Stonethrow Ridge and what appeared to be about three miles worth of glacier before getting to the western coast. From there, they could just follow the rocky sh.o.r.e to get to the research station.

Carl fashioned a crude pack out of a pillowcase and shoelaces and they supplied themselves the best they could. They filled it with a jar of peanut b.u.t.ter, four slices of bread, half a chocolate bar, and three water bottles. He was able to stuff in a canvas tarp to use as a makeshift shelter, just in case.

They headed out of the camp and walked in the general direction of the research station. Although it was cold, Howard guessed it was under twenty degrees, they were dressed well in guard parkas. The sky was overcast but dry.

Stonethrow Ridge on the map was home to the platinum mine. They walked past the tunnel and started to climb. According to the map, the ridge peaked at six hundred feet. The brittle ground crumbled away from their hands and feet as they slowly made their way up.

After about an hour of climbing, Howard and Carl finally got to the top of the ridge. They paused to catch their breath and surveyed the land before them. At the bottom of the ridge lay the ma.s.sive glacier they would have to cross, but at least it looked relatively level and smooth from there.

"Not too bad, hey Howie? Just like walking over a frozen lake."

"Don't be too sure," replied Howard. "I've seen enough TV and movies to know we'll probably run into some creva.s.ses. I think they can get as wide as a hundred feet. It could take hours to try to find a way around. And that's if we don't fall into one and break our necks."

"s.h.i.t, man. You got a knack for p.i.s.sing on my parade."